Pathfinder - Witch Patrons Breakdown

Disclaimer

I will use content from the core rules, but will intentionally omit any content not published
on the official Pathfinder SRD due to the
unmanageable volume of non-SRD content, and the wildly varying quality of non-SRD content.
If you would like me to write handbooks for specific content not published on the official
SRD, please email me and I will consider it on a case-by-case
basis. I will use the color coding scheme which has become common among Pathfinder build
handbooks. Also note that many colored items are also links to the Paizo SRD.

Red: Bad, useless options, or options which are extremely situational.

Orange: OK options, or useful options that only apply in rare circumstances

Green: Good options.

Blue: Fantastic options, often essential to the function of your character.

Temporary Note: Pathfinder Unchained and Occult Adventures were
both recently added to the SRD. I'm excited to explore them, and I am actively working
on adding their contents to my collection of handbooks. I appreciate your patience while
I make these changes.

Patrons

The Witch's patron is much like the Sorceror's bloodline: it adds new spells which
may not otherwise be available to the Witch, and can define a major portion of the
Witch's spell list.

Many patrons provide one or more Polymorph spells. Polymorph is not normally on
the Witch spell list, and polymorphing is something that you need to be built for
if you want to be good at it. See my
Practical Guide to
Polymorph for suggestions.

Agility

The Agility domain provides some good buffs and a splash of polymorph. The spells
are a great selection, and provide some excellent options. Unfortunately, because you
only get a few polymorph spells, its hard to justify devoting your character to
polymorphing with this archetype.

jump: Very situational. Not on the Witch
spell list.

cat's grace: A useful buff, but many
characters who need dexterity will invest in items which provide it.

haste: One of the best buffs in the game.
Not on the Cleric spell list.

freedom of movement: Excellent buff, but
situational.

polymorph: Extremely versatile, but
don't plan to use it on yourself often unless you built for polymorph.

cat's grace (mass): You will rarely
need to enhance the dexterity of more than one or two characters in the party.

ethereal jaunt: Great for a variety
of purposes, including infiltration, spying, escaping, or killing etheral
creatures.

animal shapes: Very slightly better
than Polymorph.

shapechange: The best polymorph spell
in the game. You can assume a dizzying number of forms, including that of a
dragon.

Ancestors

The Ancestors patron introduces several essential buffs from the Cleric spell list,
giving the Witch a lot of excellent Support options. If you have a Bard or Cleric in
the party, skip this option.

bless: A solid low-level buff. If you
don't have any other morale bonuses available, this stays good forever.

aid: Mostly useful for the temporary
hitpoints.

prayer: The bonus is a luck bonus, so
it stacks with Bless, and Prayer simultaneously applies a penalty to enemies.

blessing of fervor: Almost as good as
Haste, but allows your allies to choose different bonuses every round.

commune: Expensive, but very powerful.

greater heroism: Great if only one
person in your party needs buffs to their attack rolls. Doesn't stack with
Bless.

refuge: Situational and very expensive.

euphoric tranquility: Like a high
level version of Charm Monster.

weird: Excellent AOE save or die, and if
they succeed on the save they are still stunned and take strength damage.

Animals

The Animals patron adds some animal-related spells, but because animals are such
a small subset of encounters, it's largely useless. If you like animals so much, play
a Druid.

suffocation: Excellent save or die spell.
The 3 round duration may seem like a handicap, but it means the target must save
three times to avoid being dropped to 0 hitpoints and unconcious.

circle of death: Expensive, but it's
hard to say no to an AOE save or die spell.

finger of death: A huge pile of damage.
Typically this should be enough to kill enemies of your CR, especially at high
level when enemies are less dependent on hit dice to survive.

symbol of death: Symbol spells are very
expensive and hard to justify without Permanency, which isn't a Witch spell.

power word kill: The ultimate save or
die spell.

Deception

The Deception domain has some very good spells, but most are very situational.

ventriloquism: Very situational.

invisibility: Fantastic buff for you or
your party's Scout.

blink: Great defensive buff, but poor
duration.

confusion: Very difficult to use, and
the effects are not guranteed to be useful.

passwall: Situational, but very useful.

programmed image: Situational, but
very cool.

invisibility (mass): Fantastic buff for
your whole party.

scintillating pattern: No save, but the
limited number of hit dice affected really handicaps this spell.

time stop: One of the best spells in the
game.

Elements

The Blaster Witch's go-to option. With the exception of Wall of Ice, every spell
in the list is a damage spell, and the list includes many of the best Blaster spells
around.

shocking grasp: Excellent damage for
such a low level spell, and you can cast it and let your familiar carry it
around until its time to taze something.

flaming sphere: Good, not great, but
it's a good way to stretch one spell slot over several rounds of damage output.

fireball: If you have one third-level
spell, prepare Fireball. If you have two third-level spells, prepare Fireball
twice.

wall of ice: Excellent area control, and
you can use it as a save-or-suck by encasing a target inside the hemisphere
option.

flame strike: Like Fireball, but with
a higher damage cap and half of the damage can't be resisted.

freezing sphere: Like a bigger, colder
fireball. It has the same damage cap as Flame Strike, but it also freezes water.

vortex*: Situational. How often do you
fight on a body of water big enough to use this?

fire storm: Fire damage in a huge area
which you have a lot of control over, and if they fail a reflex save they take
4d6 damage each round until they die or pass a fairly difficult reflex save to
put themselves out.

meteor swarm: It totals 24d6 damage,
which is nice, but allowing 4 saves makes it more likely that the target will pass
one or more saves. The best option is to target one creature with touch attacks
for the bonus 8d6 bludgeoning damage and the penalty on the saving throws.

Enchantment

The Enchantment school is one of the most powerful schools of magic, and includes
some very powerful save or suck spells. The first few spells aren't great, but you
get several fantastic high level options.

unnatural lust: Like a hillarious
version of Command. You get it a level early, which is good because this would
be a horrible 2nd level spell.

calm emotions: Very situational.

unadulterated loathing: Very situational.

overwhelming grief: The target gets almost
all of the penalties of being Stunned. Hold Person might be better for humanoids,
but this will work on monsters until you can cast Hold Monster.

dominate person: Perhaps the most iconic
Enchantment spell around, and for good reason.

geas: Situational, but insanely
powerful.

euphoric tranquility: Like a high
level version of Charm Monster. You get it a level early.

demand: Send this to your enemies'
unintelligent minions, and tell them to steal the macguffin and bring it to you.

dominate monster: Save or Suck, and you
get a really powerful pet for a little while.

Endurance

The Endurance patron provides a collection of defensive buffs, Greater Restoration
for some reason, and finished with Miracle. Altogether it's a passable support patron,
but it doesn't have anything especially exciting.

endure elements: Very situational, and
almost everyone has it on their spell list.

bear's endurance: Ability enhancement
spells are always nice, but this one is hard to use because of the small risk of
dropping dead when the duration ends.

protection from energy: Always handy.

spell immunity: It is very hard to
predict what spells to pick.

spell resistance: If you're going to
fight other spellcasters, there is no reason not to cast this. Unless they have
Spell Penetration, this makes you 60% immune to the spells of spellcasters of your
level.

bear's endurance (mass): Same issues
as Bear's Endurance, en masse.

restoration (greater): You rarely need
this spell, and it is very expensive to cast.

iron body: Interesting buff, but the
effects which it protects you from are usually biger problems for your front-line
party members.

miracle: Basically Wish for divine
casters. The best spell that Witches can get.

Healing

Despite the name, the Healing patron provides surprisingly little actual healing.
If you have access to hit points from a wand or something, this patron allows you
restore other status conditions which hit points alone won't fix.

remove fear: Situational. Fear effects
tend to be fairly gentle, so very few people bother to cast this.

lesser restoration: Excellent way to
remove ability damage.

remove disease: Situational, but nice
to have when you eventually need it.

restoration: You can generally get away
with lesser restoration, but sometimes you need a little more power.

cleanse: Like a combination of Cure
Critical Wounds and a bunch of status effect removal.

pillar of life: A combincatin of
healing and area control against undead.

greater restoration: You very rarely
need this, which is good because the cost is so high.

mass cure critical wounds: Not worth such
a high level spell.

true resurrection: Sometimes people die
at high levels, and it's good to be able to handle it.

Insanity

The Insanity domain contains a lot of bad options, and only a few truly good
options.

memory lapse: Very situational, and if
you fail you might make things worse.

hideous laughter: Save or suck that
will take one target out of a fight for several rounds.

distracting cacophony: This is very rarely
a better option than just killing the other spellcaster.

confusion: Very difficult to use, and
the effects are not guranteed to be useful.

mind fog: Interesting area control
effect, and great for laying an ambush. I really wish that this spell could be
made permanent.

envious urge: Great way to disable groups
of enemies. Even if some of them pass their save, they still need to deal with
their allies attempting to disarm or rob them.

insanity: Permanent Confusion.

symbol of insanity: Symbol spells are very
expensive and hard to justify without Permanency, which isn't a Witch spell.

overwhelming presence: Excellent crowd
control, but there are several 9th level spells with the same DC that will outright
kill things.

Light

The Light patron is difficult to assess purely due to the inclusion of Sunbeam
and Sunburst. The other options are generally good.

dancing lantern: Just cast light on
something that you're wearing or carrying.

continual flame: You will probably only
cast this once or twice.

daylight: Nice to have, but situational.

rainbow pattern: Good crowd control, but
it requires concentration so you will need your party to handle anything that
isn't affected.

fire snake: Like a very precise fireball.

sirocco: Nice area control effect. A
little bit of damage, knock things prone, and make them fatigued.

sunbeam: This spell is poorly written. How long
does the blindness last? Does the blindness end when you run out of rays? Or
does it continue until the rounds/level duration expires? It affects "fungi, mold,
oozes, and slimes" as though they were undead, but of those four only Ooze is a
defined creature type. The wording regarding undead also makes it unclear if they
are blinded in addition to the extra damage. The Pathfinder Rules Questions forum
has several threads
about the spell, all expressing similar concerns. I would interpret the spell
as follows: Normal creatures take listed damage (4d6) and are permanently blinded.
Undead take the bigger damage instead of the regular damage, and are blinded as
normal. Oozes, and plant creatures which could be defined as "fungi, mold, or slime"
(such as shambling mounds or mushroom creatures) are affected like undead.
Consult your GM to be sure.

sunburst: Though it suffers many of the rules interpetation
issues of sunbeam, sunburst is slightly easier to interpret. Because the duration
is instantaneous, the blindness effect is permanent. The damage dealt to undead is
still unclear (do they take damage twice?), and the additional list of things
affected like undead is still confusing.

fiery body: Excellent buff, but not
quite as good for the Witch as it would be for a more combat-oriented class like
a Cleric.

Moon

Despite a very strong start, the Moon patron is mostly a collection weird
situational spells chosen solely because they are vaguely moon-related.

darkness: You get this a level earlier
than anyone else, but won't be able to use it much until your get Darkvision.

darkvision: With an hours per level
duration, you can eventually afford to throw this on all of your allies so that
you can all fight within the area of Darkness.

owl's wisdom: This is barely useful, and
you get it a level late.

moonstruck: Turn a weak-willed enemy
into a scary, confused almost-werewolf.

aspect of the wolf: You are almost
certainly not built to take advantage of this, and a Witch is not a tripper.

control water: Get it? Because the moon
affects the tides? Right? Pretty clever. Very situational.

lunar veil: Very situational.

horrid wilting: Decent single-target
damage, but at this level you can use save or die spells with the save DC.

meteor swarm: It totals 24d6 damage,
which is nice, but allowing 4 saves makes it more likely that the target will pass
one or more saves. The best option is to target one creature with touch attacks
for the bonus 8d6 bludgeoning damage and the penalty on the saving throws.

Occult

The Occult patron is a really cool collection of spells. It involves things that
are creepy, weird, and generally... well, generally occult. Many of the spells are
very good, especially at higher levels.

detect undead: Situational.

command undead: Great for acquiring new
undead minions. Because the duration is days per level, you can stagger daily
castings to control huge numbers of undead. Also note that there is no save for
mindless undead and no hit die limit, so you can use this to control the skeleton
of an ancient wyrm at level 4. Your GM would be a fool to allow it, but it's
technically possible.

twilight knife: This spell is really
cool, scales well with level, and does force damage. However, the spell description
leaves out some very crucial information. How does the knife pick a target? How
fast can it move? Does it threaten? Can it provide a flanking bonus to allies
even if it doesn't threaten? You also need to attack a target to keep the knife
attacking, but it's not clear if the knife attacks the same target that you did
and at what point during your turn it attacks.

black tentacles: One of the best area
control spells in the game.

snake staff: Conceptually cool, but it;s
only really useful if you carry around wagons full of garbage.

create undead: Create some scary undead.
The spell is more expensive than Animate Dead, but the difference between a
ghoul and a zombie is pretty huge.

waves of exhaustion: Exhausted is very
gentle as far as status conditions go. -6 Strength and Dexterity sounds scary, but
anything that needs strength and dexterity will still have enough to ruin your
day.

trap the soul: Despite being insanely
expensive to cast on anything of reasonably high level, this allows a permanent
save-or-suck effect with no save if you're clever. Once your target is inside the
gem, they never die, so they can never be resurrected. Though the spell doesn't
state it, you likely need crazy magic like Wish or Miracle to get someone out of
the gem if you don't have the gem in hand.

gate: The ultimate summoning spell.

Plague

"Rot" might be a more appropriate name for this patron since only two spells
(Contagion and Giant Vermin) could be considered plagues. This patron centers mostly
on the creation and control of undead.

detect undead: Situational.

command undead: Great for acquiring new
undead minions. Because the duration is days per level, you can stagger daily
castings to control huge numbers of undead. Also note that there is no save for
mindless undead and no hit die limit, so you can use this to control the skeleton
of an ancient wyrm at level 4. Your GM would be a fool to allow it, but it's
technically possible.

contagion: Blinding sickness is a great
combination of strength damage and permanent blindness. Because it's a touch
attack you can cast it well ahead of time and have your familiar deliver the
touch attack.

animate dead: Time to build an army. If
you create more undead than Animate Dead allows you to control, you can use Command
Undead to control the ones that fall out of control.

giant vermin: With minutes per level
duration, this is a bit like a longer version of Summon Monster.

create undead: Create some scary undead.
The spell is more expensive than Animate Dead, but the difference between a
ghoul and a zombie is pretty huge.

control undead: Unintelligent undead
still get a save, and the duration is shorter than Command Undead.

create greater undead: Create some very
scary undead.

energy drain: Begative levels can really
mess up your enemies.

Portents

The Portents patron provides a list of useful Divination spells, combining some
good buffs with information-gathering spells.

ill-omen: It may not be immediately
clear how best to use this, so here's an example: At high level, you cast this
quickened, then immediately cast a save-or-suck spell. The target makes two rolls,
and must select the worse of the two rolls. Even at low levels, this can make an
enemy fail a crucial saving throw or miss an attack.

locate object: Assuming that you know
what the macguffin looks like, this can be a shortcut through the plot.

blood biography: Situational, but a
really cool spell for investigation.

divination: Very powerful and very
useful, especially if your GM is creative enough to give you good answers.

contact other plane: Even more powerful
than Divination, but considerably more risky.

legend lore: More situational than
your other divination options, but still very powerful.

vision: Just as situational as Legend
Lore, but much faster to cast.

moment of prescience: Keeping this
running every day could save your life.

foresight: Insight bonuses to AC and
saves are rare, but the bonus is fairly small for such a high level spell. The
big draw is never being surprised.

Shadow

The Shadow domain is largely defined by the Shadow Conjuration/Evocation spells.
By preparing these spells, you open up huge portions of the Wizard spell list, which
adds a lot of versatility to the Witch, who otherwise would be required to guess which
spells they will need at the beginning of the day.

silent image: Enough to do a lot of very
clever things.

darkness: I hope you have Darkvision,
because it's not on the Witch spell list.

deeper darkness: Darkness is usually
plenty, especially considering that you don't have blindesense or anything.

shadow conjuration: Adds a ton of
versatility.

shadow evocation: Not as versatile as
Shadow Conjuration, but it does give you a lot of options with one spell.

Spirits

Many of the spells provided by the the Spirits patron are very good, but they
are also very situational.

ghostbane dirge: Situational, but great
to have when incorporeal creatures show up. It also only affects one creature.

invisibility: Fantastic buff for you or
your party's Scout.

speak with dead: Situational, but very
powerful.

spiritual ally: Because Witches get
1/2 BAB instead of 2/3 like Clerics, this isn't as good for a Witch as it is for
a Cleric.

mass ghostbane dirge: A linear improvement
to Ghostbane Dirge, but it sucks that it's such a high level spell.

shadow walk: Good travel or infiltration
spell.

ethereal jaunt: Great for a variety
of purposes, including infiltration, spying, escaping, or killing etheral
creatures.

planar ally: Planar Ally spells are
immensely powerful, though they are very expensive.

etherealness: Ethereal Jaunt for the
whole party.

Stars

An excellent mix of good, bad, and situational spells. Several great options for
handling invisibility.

faerie fire: Fantastic way to handle
invisibility and concealment effects which become common at high levels. No
save, so it always works as long as you hit the right area.

dust of twilight: Very situational.

guiding star: This is nice if you
plan to go somewhere far away or difficult to navigate, but even then it's fairly
situational.

wandering star motes: A great combination
of invisibility detection and crowd control. Because it bounces to another target
if the target succeeds on the save, you can get a lot of mileage out of one spell.

dream: Situational.

cloak of dreams: If the Witch was more
likely to be in melee combat, this would be insanely powerful. Even so, it's a
fantastic deterrent.

circle of clarity: Very situational, and
the duration is poor.

euphoric tranquility: Like a high
level version of Charm Monster.

astral projection: Very cool way to
"safely" explore the outer planes.

Strength

The Strength domain would be really fantastic if you were something like a Cleric,
which makes sense because most of the spells are from the Cleric spell list.

divine favor: This is a great buff for
characters that use weapons.

bull's strength: Throw this on your
tank until they can buy a belt.

greater magic weapon: With hours/level
duration, this will last the whole adventuring day, and can save your party's
weapon users a ton of money.

divine power: Like Divine Favor, this is
great for characters that use weapons, but largely useless for you.

righteous might: Like Divine Favor, this
is great for characters that use weapons, but largely useless for you.

bull's strength (mass): It's pretty
uncommon to have more than one or two characters in a party dependent on Strength,
and at this point those characters should have belts of at least +4 strength.

giant form I: This is one of the worse
polymorph spells, and this late in the game it doesn't do you any favors.

giant form II: See Gaint Form I.

shapechange: Extremely versatile, but
at this point you're probably not built for polymorphing.

Time

Almost every option provided by the Time Patron is great, including the more
situatinal options.

ventriloquism: Very situational.

silence: Great way to prevent enemy
spellcasters from using most of their spells.

haste: One of the best buffs in the game.
Not on the Cleric spell list.

threefold aspect: Because the duration
is 24 hours you could cast this every day to use the bonuses from the Elder option
to grant you extra spells. Of course the enhancement bonuses don't stack with
items, so you may be better off just using the normal aging rules.

teleport: Excellent travel method.

disintegrate: A pile of damage to a
creature, or remove pesky obstructions like buildings.

expend: Horribly inneffective.

temporal stasis: Situational and
expensive, but you can use this as a save or suck effect if you need to.

time stop: One of the best spells in the
game.

Transformation

The Transformation patron is a polymorph spell list. You get all of the best
self-polymorph spells, which is really all that you ever need. Beast Shape gives you
all of the good animal forms, and Dragon Shape fills out your high level polymorph
options.

jump: Very situational. Not on the Witch
spell list.

bear's endurance: Ability enhancement
spells are always nice, but this one is hard to use because of the small risk of
dropping dead when the duration ends.

beast shape I: See patron description.

beast shape II: See patron description.

beast shape III: See patron description.

form of the dragon I: See patron description.

form of the dragon II: See patron description.

form of the dragon III: See patron description.

shapechange: See patron description.

Trickery

The Trickery patron is primarily devoted to illusions. Illusions can be very
powerful in the hands of a creative player with an equally creative GM, but if your
GM tends to be uninpsired or rules lawyer-y, your illusions may not work as well as
they probably should.

animate rope: Situational, and difficult
to use.

mirror image: Excellent defensive buff
at any level.

major image: Excellent illusions; allows
you to do a lot of creative stuff.

hallucinatory terrain: Situational, and
not as easy to use as Major Image.

mirage arcana: Better than Hallucinatory
Terrain, but still situational.

mislead: Excellent for escaping and
distraction.

reverse gravity: Create a column of
reversed gravity leading up to a solid surface, and you can make things take
falling damage twice.

screen: One of the best illusions
available, and a 24 hour duration.

time stop: One of the best spells in the
game.

Water

Like most water-themed options, the Water patron is mostly useful when in, on, or
around water. Otherwise, you will find that many of the spells are useless.

bless water/curse water: Just buy the
water. It's the same price.

slipstream*: Decent speed buff, but
longstrider is better.

water breathing: Situational.

control water: Situational.

geyser*: Cool are control effect.

elemental body III (water only): This
spell is awful even without the element restriction.

elemental body IV (water only):This
spell is awful even without the element restriction.

seamantle*: Excellent defensive buff.

tsunami*: Huge area control.

Vengeance

Most of the spells are weak or situational. The only good options are very high
level.

burning hands: Poor damage, small AOE.

burning gaze: A ton of fun, and a great
way to stretch out a spell slot, but the damage is very small.

pain strike: Cool, and good for torturing
people, but not good in combat.

shout: Only good because it doesn't have
somatic components.

symbol of pain: Symbol spells are very
expensive and hard to justify without Permanency, which isn't a Witch spell.

mass pain strike: All of the same
issues that Pain Strike has, but because it's a much higher level spell you can
assume that 1d6 damage will be a proportionately smaller portion of your enemies'
hit points.

phantasmal revenge: A great way to kill
someone without taking the time to go find them.

incendiary cloud: The damage isn't great,
but this is still a great area control spell.

winds of vengeance: A very flashy buff
with a good fly speed.

Winter

Despite a couple of poor low-level open, the Winter patron provides a nice mix
of damage and area control spells, making it a good choice for a Witch who needs to
succeed in a variety of roles.

unshakable chill: Takes too long to take
effect, but you do get it a level early.

resist energy (cold only): This spell is
good because it is versatile. Taking away the versatility makes it very hard to
use.

ice storm: A splash of damage and some
area control. This spell is decent, but only because you get it a level early.

wall of ice: Excellent area control, and
you can use it as a save-or-suck by encasing a target inside the hemisphere
option.

cone of cold: Good AOE damage, but it's
a cone so you need to get close to your enemies to use it.

freezing sphere: Like a bigger, colder
fireball. It has the same damage cap as Flame Strike, but it also freezes water.

control weather: Very powerful, but
situational.

polar ray: Good single-target damahe
with no saving throw.

polar midnight: Brutal area control.
The damage and dexterity damage are horrible enough by themselves, but if the
targets don't move they are turned to solid ice with no save.

Wisdom

The Wisdom patron provides several excellent defensive buffs.

shield of faith: Excellent AC buff,
especially as you reach higher levels and the duration increases.

owl's wisdom: Basically all that this
gets anyone is a buff to will saves.

magic vestment: With hours per level
duration, this can last through the whole adventuring day. This may or may not
work with Mage Armor; check with your GM. Either way, you can use it on your
party members to save them money on armor/shield enhancements.

globe of invulnerability (lesser):
Ignore spells like Magic Missile and Fireball. This continues to be useful at
high levels because it affects quickened versions of spells whose original
spell level is 3 or lower.

dream: Situational.

globe of invulnerability (greater):

spell turning: Fantastic protection
against spells.

protection from spells: Makes your
cloak of resistance a useless sheet of cloth.

mage's disjunction: The ultimate
dispel effect. Not that it ruins magic items, which will really piss of your
allies.